A vehicle, such as automotive vehicle, is equipped with a wiper apparatus which ensures a field of view from a driver through a windshield. The wiper apparatus includes a wiper arm which is swung by an electric motor, and a wiper blade attached to the wiper arm. When a wiper switch provided in a vehicle interior is switched on, the wiper arm is swung, thereby reciprocating a blade rubber on a windshield to be wiped. As a result, the blade rubber wipes away rainwater, etc., from the windshield.
When extraneous matters such as dust attach to the windshield, the wiper blade is reciprocated on a windshield as cleaning liquid is jetted onto the windshield. Through this process, the extraneous matter such as dust attached to the windshield is wetted and completely wiped out without scratching the windshield. Usually, cleaning liquid is jetted from a nozzle unit disposed on a hood, etc., of the vehicle, onto the windshield. This case, however, encounters such a problem that cleaning liquid jetted toward an injection-target location of the windshield disturbs the driver's field of view, and the long distance between the nozzle unit and the windshield exposes cleaning liquid to aerodynamic drag caused by the running vehicle, resulting in a significant shift in the injection-target location for cleaning liquid, and that use of a relatively large amount of cleaning liquid requires frequent refilling of a tank with cleaning liquid.
In order to solve the above problems, for example, a wiper apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-137459 (patent document 1) has been developed. The wiper apparatus described in patent document 1 includes a wiper blade connected rotatably to the front end of a wiper arm and a washer nozzle attached to the front end of the wiper arm. The washer nozzle jets cleaning liquid toward the wiper blade, thereby allowing cleaning liquid to reach a predetermined area in the longitudinal direction of the wiper blade.